PRO4896-34 planning and build log

[seesoe]

Hello everyone, I'm planning a PRO4896 build within the next month if all planning goes accordingly. I currently have a MDF machine that I built a year ago that I'm using in my business, but it's time for an upgrade I'm located in central Florida and I'll try my best to document the whole build log.

What I have planned so far
- PRO4896 nema 34 kit
- CRP's nema 34 steppers
- G201X drivers
- 4 48v 7.3amp SPSU's
- PMDX-126 breakout
- PMDX-107 spindle controller
- 2.2kw Chinese water cooled spindle and VFD

Things to figure out
- wood base frame or welded metal frame
- best wire type to use to wire the spindle and stepper drivers
- limit setup, use mechanical switches or proximity (I'll probably go with proximity)
- cooling pump setup for the spindle
- dust collector setup
- electrical cabinets and electronic layout
- machine feet/levelers

Electrical wise, I know I want to make everything central to the machine, so I'm just going to run a single phase 220 30amp genorator style cable off the machine. Then on the machine split the poles for a 120 line for the power supplies and another for the other misc electrical things like computer and pump.

For the dust collector system, I'll probably go with a typical harbor freight blower and a dust deputy. For the spindle boot, I want to try and use my 3d printer to make the boot, if i fail I'll probably end up with one from kent.

I read a lot of users that say if one goes with a wood base then to give it lots of mass. What about the case if welding a frame up? What would be an adequate tube size, 1, 1.5, 2 inches square tubes? I'm leaning towards either a full wood base or a hybrid wood and metal base. Reason for wood is, it's easier for me to build and customize on the fly, as I said before I would like to centralize all the machine components. However at the same time i want to keep a sleek look machine.


Any questions, comments, or concerns on the setup thus far are greatly welcomed.
Thanks
Sammy

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[ahren]

Hey Sammy,

I'd go with a wood base made primarily from plywood or LVLs (purely for straightness). You can add a lot of mass to this later as needed just by building a shelf that you can place extra weight on. Here's a build log in this same forum that has a nice sturdy base:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/cnc_ro...ral_texas.html

Alternatively, you could use just the perforated steel legs we sell -- these have a convenient grid of holes that you could use to attach wood materials to for a hybrid approach. Otherwise, looks like you've got a good plan together. Let me know when you're ready to go with that quote

Best regards,

Ahren
CNCRouterParts

[seesoe]

thanks for the feedback ahren, will do . i elected to go with a fully wood base. the design uses the same idea as vbgraves's PRO4848 wood base but mine is 112" x 49". my base also borrows some ideas from Novaprops as well. in the pictures you will see sheeting on the sides, i'm not going to install these until later, or i might not install them ever. i also left the front empty for now, as i would like to put as much hardware and electronics as i can in that area and i like to build as i go and get a feel for things.

What I have planned so far
- base designed fully from wood
- limits will be dirktheeng's pogo pin setup
- laid out all the required wiring and hardware for supplying the machine's power, it will be one single phase 220v 30amp input
- spindle cable will be either IGUS CF31-15-04 16/4 or Cable-Tray Continuous-Flex Multi - 9700T46

Things to figure out
- cooling pump setup for the spindle
- dust collector setup
- electrical cabinets and electronic layout
- machine feet/levelers
- fair ER20 collets set to start with
- spoilboard plainer bit


im not sure which vfd and spindle i want to buy yet. i did a lot of reading, however a lot of material was from a few years ago and it seems that the vfd's from china got better lately? heres where im at

$374 - solar jean - 2.2kw water cooled spindle and vfd

or

Hitachi X200 vfd (which model?)
spindle from solar.jean or love-happyshopping or linearmotionbearings2008

or

some other vfd
spindle from solar.jean or love-happyshopping or linearmotionbearings2008


sammy

[seesoe]

hey everyone, here is some small updates.

- ordered my kit last week and should be here in about a little over a week.
- ordered a bunch of little things i ordered arrived and the power supplies come tomorrow
- started cleaning out the garage
- ran a 220 line for the machine
- wired up a remote service panel that will be mounted on the machine

i am going to try and get the base built this weekend. i decided to go with a different plan for the base however i am still working on that.


Things to figure out
- cooling pump setup for the spindle
- dust collector setup
- electrical cabinets and electronic layout
- fair ER20 collets set to start with
- spoilboard flycutter

sammy

[seesoe]

i got the base built last night, i was able to rock it off in about 6 hours. my kit should hopefully be here sometime next week.

i'm not sure how i want to finish of the base yet. the bottom shelf is not put together yet, just fitted on the floor. i apologize for the narrow viewed pictures as my garage is very full and there isn't much room to step back.

i also start laying out how i want the electronics and so far i'm looking at about a 24" x 18-24+ box. my pmdx-126 and 107 should be here next week.

you might of noticed my base is a little high. total height to the top of the extrusion turned out to be 40 inches. i'm visually impaired so i wanted to keep things a little high to make it easier to work with. however i have a feeling i will regret making the machine so heigh.

[sdantonio]

Hi,

COnsider a wooden tortion table for your base. You may find that it stiffer than a standard wood base.

Steven

[seesoe]

Steven, thank you for the suggestion. i have a torsion box that i made for my old mdf cnc machine. unfortunately it was for a 6x4 machine so i just have it on the side. my base frame came out stronger than i thought it will and is doing the job perfectly.

last week i just about got all the mechanical system together. this week i have been working on finishing up my control box. i've had a few issues with hardware and electronics and has set me back, however, everything was sorted out or is being sorted out with CRP.

when assembling the kit, 2 quick release clamps will work magic for you. take a look at CRP's website for a very good starting point for assembly. there is various tips to remember, but here is a few.
- lay everything out and study the packages of bolts and hardware, know exactly what goes where and count all the parts so that you will know if something is missing before you begin.


- when doing the splice plate with the 48x96 machine, don't stress too much about making everything align perfectly as when you add the rails and vcon blocks, things will get tighter in place.
- be careful how you install your splice plate, study it and plane it out. it might be a little trick to install. i put the 2 base halves together first and then installed the splice plate facing upward and then with a few helpers we flipped the base upside down to its final position.


- there is a lot of bolts and hardware and repetitive assembly with these kits, especially the 48x96 machines. it will be worth your time to go through and see what you can assemble in batches and set aside. HOWEVER, be careful what you assemble and make sure you know 100% that thats what needs to be put together with the correct hardware, or else you'll find yourself working double!


- don't forget to use locktight on the small stepper pulleys
- when installing the vcon rails, be sure to run your finger along the edge that the vcon bearing will roll on and check for dinges in the rail. that way the gantry will roll smoothly.

moral of all this, take your time, don't rush anything and plan every single step ahead of time. ill post most tips as i remember them.


the nema enclosure i bought measure 20"x24"x8". it didn't have any openings or anything to work with so i had to cut 2 openings out for the heatsink and I/O panel blank, which btw wasn't fun at all. i also added a few shots of the mounted control panel and service panel. one 20 amp breaker for the computer and pmdx-126 and other misc things. one 20 amp breaker for the 4 48v power supplies. one 20 amp 2 pole breaker for the vfd.


i got a nice shipment full of goodies from mcmastercarr for the control panel. wires, crimps, terminal blocks, plates, screws, standoffs to name some of the goodies


here is where im at with the control panel.

things i need to do with parts that are coming in this weekend hopefully.
- install a 90* angle slim vga cable, to a panel mount connector. (the vga port in the picture is under the parallel ribbon, but it is very very tight and isn't gonna work in the long run so im using a slim cable head. if that doesn't work ill use a pci vga if i have to)
- install panel mount terminals for the proximity sensors that i decided to go with instead of pogo pins.
- thermal grease the back of the gecko drivers to the heatsink and add a fan to the outside of the heatsink.
- replace the 3.5 hard drive with either a fast write usb/ssd stick or a 2.5 laptop hard drive and mount it.
- finish up some wire shielding hookup to earth. i already have the machine, both panels and door, and stepper wires earthed.
- set the right 7amp pin settings for the gecko drivers


im having some trouble with the proximity sensors so i had to take them back off. i will not be using a cable track right now, so i think i will put a simple wood cable troth on the side of the machine until then. i still need put some ply on the bottom of the base and get it painted. you will notice the machine isn't mounted down to the base yet. i have some gussets coming in tomorrow that i will use to mount the machine to the base. also i need to go through all the drives and set proper tension as well as apply some silicone spray on the racks and rails.

[seesoe]

my vfd and 2.2kw spindle from love-happyshopping should be here next week. i already have a 600 gph ecoplus pump and 100' of 6mm x 8mm tubing

i like to complicate things so i decided to run my PMDX-126 in expanded I/O mode. i plan to use the 5th full output axis gained as a rotary index axis. in expanded I/O mode you also get 9 inputs, 1 dedicated for the estop. i want to wire each of the 5 proximity sensors to its own input signal so i can see plus and minus or for homing later on. 1 input for a z touch off plate, and i'm planning on putting a button on/near the spindle/z axis, and when pressed, mach3 will start running a z zeroing touch process. with my old machine i hated having to keep the keyboard near as i do a zeroing process.

i spent a few hours messing with the mach3 settings and the pmdx driver for expanded io mode. it makes things a little bit more difficult to set up, however i think i have down what needs to be done. the interesting part will come next week when i configure the pmdx-107 and k relays with expanded mode


i was able to get first motion from the machine last night with the 126 in normal mode, and everything worked great. i started having issues when i switched everything to expanded io mode. my estop keeps triggering 10 seconds after an initial pulse is sent to the controller and i have to do a reset to get it working again. if anyone has any insight on this issue that would be great! i disconnected all the steppers one by one, i turned the dc supply off, i still get a trip 10 seconds after the first initial movement is sent to the controller.

[seesoe]

i have a lot of little things coming in this week, but nothing today so i decided to do a little cleanup to the garage and panting. unfortunately i ran out of paint.



over the weekend i was able to get the rest of the i/o panel for the control box finished. im using spring speaker connectors for the proxy switches and z touch off tool. there is also a vga, usb and audio port. one usb port is enough because the monitor i want to use as a 4 port usb hub built in. it didn't come out good in the picture, but i had to get a slim right angle vga cable to connect to the motherboard so that the inputs on the pmdx-126 are as accessible as possible. i had some issues with the proxies running at 5v. i had to run them at 12vdc and add a 5k-10k resistor between ground and input signal of each in order them to work.


i'm in the middle of a lot of different things so there is a lot of sloppy loose ends right now. hopefully by the weekend a bunch of things will come together with the final parts coming in.

i'm expecting parts for the spindle setup like the vfd and spindle and pump adapters and fittings and igus 16/4 wire.

in my last post i talked about issues with expanded i/o mode and the pmdx driver. i talked to steve from pmdx and he said the newer version of mach3 causes a lot of timing issues and recommended a second port if extra i/o's were needed, so i did just that. i ordered a pci card, adapter and ribbon cable to activate the pmdx-126's 2nd parallel port.

thats all i have up till now. i hope to be posting again later this week.

[seesoe]

I still have a some cleanup and calibration to do before I can start operating from the machine, but for the most part, the bulk of this build is complete.


I installed a second parallel port and ran a ribbon connection the pmdx’s 2nd db25 header. This will give me the extra i/o’s I wanted.



Here is the vfd configure and wired to work with the 107 and mach3. I’m using a 6 pin neutrik xlr connector to make the link between the vfd and the 107 cleaner. I set the pot on the 107 to be pretty much spot on with the rpm’s so I’m very happy with the way it came out. It took the bulk of the weekend to configure. I will go over the settings in a second post.



I’m using igus’s continuous flex cf31-15-04 16/4 wire to connect the spindle. The provided connector wasn’t fun at all to make but I managed to get it after a few hours. I decided to take a noninvasive approach for the ground setup. So I just broke out the ground wire and connected it under the socket’s screw connection with a crimp. You will also notice behind the spindle to the right, I ran a multicore wire to the spindle for my z touch off and z touch off enable inputs. out of frustration, i forgot to take pictures of the rest of the spindle connection but you will see my basic approach, the rest is self explanatory i presume.



The pump I have is a little weak, but it’s getting the job done. It pays off to do as much research as you can before ordering parts or beginning work, especially with these chinese vfd/spindle combos. The tubing I’m using is from mcmaster, it was $13 for 100 feet x 6mm id x 8mm od. The pump has a 1/2npt output. To make a clean connection I used a 1/2npt x 1/4npt bushing and a 1/4npt x 6mm hose barb fitting (which is commonly used for fuel lines). The spindle coolant is standard car antifreeze.



to do:
- paint touch ups
- cable management
- mach3 configuring for the proxies
- dust collector coming later

[seesoe]

i'm using a 2.2kw water cooled spindle and vfd combo from love-happyshopping. it came with 5 er20 collets and assembly went very smoothly. unfortunately for some reason the configuration took up the bulk of my weekend.

pmdx-126 config pins
1 - open
2 - closed
3 - closed
4 - closed
5 - closed
6 - closed
7 - open
8 - open

pmdx-107 config pins
1 - off
2 - off
3 - off
4 - off
5 - off
6 - off

vfd settings
PD013 - 8
PD005 - 400
PD004 - 400
PD003 - 400
PD002 - 1
PD001 - 1
PD006 - 2.5
PD008 - 220
PD009 - 15
PD010 - 8
PD014 - 2
PD015 - 3
PD023 - 1
PD072 - 400
PD141 - 220
PD142 - 11
PD143 - 2
PD144 - 3000

be sure to you see the word "end" after saving a setting to confirm it actually saved. i had a lot of trouble getting mach3 communicating with the vfd. the biggest kicker for me was PD072, after setting that everything worked great for some reason.

mach3 ports and pins - motor output
spindle enabled
step - 16
dir - 14

mach3 ports and pins - spindle settings
uncheck disable spindle relay
check use spindle motor output
check pwm control
pwm base = 25 (set as you wish, this is just what i used to get it working)
min = 1% (set as you wish, this is just what i used to get it working)

mach3 spindle pulley settings
min speed - 0
max speed - 24000
make sure the reversed checkbox is checked


again this is what i used to get things working for my setup. i don't guarantee the above settings for your setup.

[standles]

Love the build notes. I am about to embark on this journet and the PMDX items are on my list as well as a water cooled spindle.

One quick question... Why did you decide to run 4 PSU? everything I have seen up to now has used one power supply for the drives.

[seesoe]

standles, thanks, i pretty much have the build completed including dust collector and cable tracks. i started cutting a few things in particle board and acrylic, so far so good. i also did some rough tramming with a rod in the spindle just to get started but i haven't done any calculations to make things perfect. i haven't had time to post the rest of the build pictures and notes, however, i'll try to get some stuff posted this week.

good question, the majority of builds use one power supply, but you will find people using separate ones too, especially toroidal users. theres a few reasons why i decided on this going this route. first is cost, i paid total $124 for 4 7.3amp 48vdc PSUs versus a single 21amp 48vdc at $250 plus. second, i wanted to supply the stepper drivers with the full potential amperage, so 7.3amps a channel versus 5.25amps. a downside for some might be space and wiring for all the drivers but i think the extra step is worth the isolation. for example if one psu goes bad its $30.88 to replace it versus $250

[InControl Tech]

Thanks for doing a build thread I'm looking at doing a 4x4 table nd hope to copy your setup.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[InControl Tech]

What PSUs are you using? I'm starting plans for a PRO4848 and plan to copy a lot of your! Also any reason you didn't go with Smooth Stepper instead of adding the 2nd parallel port?

[seesoe]

a 2nd parallel port pci card was faster to setup at the time. also i feel like its more native to use that way. not to mention the obvious cost difference as well.

What PSUs are you using? I'm starting plans for a PRO4848 and plan to copy a lot of your! Also any reason you didn't go with Smooth Stepper instead of adding the 2nd parallel port?

[Gorilla83]

Also curious here as to what PSUs you are using. I also like the idea of not having a single point of failure for everything. Which PSU do you use to connect to the BOB?

[seesoe]

Also curious here as to what PSUs you are using. I also like the idea of not having a single point of failure for everything. Which PSU do you use to connect to the BOB?

I am using PSU's from ebay China, the price has gone up $6-7 since i last looked a few weeks ago. The PMDX BOB runs off the mains line.

[vinsonelt]

Looks Great!
Thanks for the info about the enclosure, I will be checking ebay frequently for one similar to yours. It looks like you did a great job with the electrical portion of your machine.

I would love to see a video of your rig in action if you get a chance.

Have you checked to see if each V wheel make contact and spin the entire length down its axis? I noticed that I have a small issues with a few of my wheels. The look look great on one portion of the rail but as it slides down one will stop spinning or one may start riding to one side. I assume it has to do with the squareness of everything.

Cheers and great looking machine!

[seesoe]

Looks Great!
Thanks for the info about the enclosure, I will be checking ebay frequently for one similar to yours. It looks like you did a great job with the electrical portion of your machine.

I would love to see a video of your rig in action if you get a chance.

Have you checked to see if each V wheel make contact and spin the entire length down its axis? I noticed that I have a small issues with a few of my wheels. The look look great on one portion of the rail but as it slides down one will stop spinning or one may start riding to one side. I assume it has to do with the squareness of everything.

Cheers and great looking machine!

thanks! yeah, keep an eye out on ebay. the enclosure was 180$ but i made an offer for 150$.

i'm currently out of the country and will be back mid june. i have a big order i need to get ready for once i get back. so ill be doing more than the usual maintenance on the machine to prepare. ill post some final setup pictures and a video or two once i finish cleanup and maintenance. i believe i do have a bearing or two not riding on the rail in some spots as well.

since you are not relatively far into assembly you might want to take the gantry beam off and make sure the x risers roll perfectly, it might be easier this way. make sure all the rails are pushed in all the way with clamps when you tighten them in their holder. the rails might have a bow in them so maybe flipping them around will help. also consider pulling the rail out a hair where the bearing doesn't roll.